Tips on Effective College Videos From Experienced Educator Mark Christensen, NH

Newport, New Hampshire, June 21, 2017 (Newswire.com) - Mark Christensen, N.H knows that college videos are a great way to showcase the value of your school. Anything new and interesting is worth making a video about, whether it is a new faculty member, a new program, a renovation of a building, a student achievement, and so on. However, it can be difficult to figure out where you should start. While video is a strong marketing medium, it will only work if you do it right. You want your audience to see the video and be inspired by it, allowing them to understand and identify with the spirit of your college.

Making a college video is actually not that difficult. Like any project, it is about planning things properly. Furthermore, this only requires two main steps. Both of these steps will ensure that your message will come across properly to the audience that you want to reach. By following the two key steps that we discuss below, you can create a good video that will deliver the right message effectively.

1. Decide on the Style for the Video

First of all, you have to decide on the style for your video. This will ensure that when shooting day arrives, you know what to do. You may, for instance, decide to conduct an interview in which the interviewee faces directly at the camera while answering your questions. Alternatively, you may want the person being interviewed to look off camera to a certain degree, creating a particular effect. Similarly, you might want consider whether to capture the interview with wide shots like a documentary, or whether it would be better to use a handheld camera to capture the energy being demonstrated by the interviewee.

There are specific benefits for each style of video, but you must choose which one will be right for you. This will create a tone that is right for your audience. There is no one size fits all solution, so it is vital that you understand your audience and what would be most effective way to reach them with your message.

In terms of choosing your style, make sure that you are consistent across all your scenes. This also makes placing the content a lot easier, because you used the same approach across the board.

2. Set a Schedule

It doesn't matter whether you want to create a documentary about your college basketball team, a video showing how to register for new courses, or a video featuring your faculty members. For all kinds of college videos, you will need to consider schedules. People whom you plan to feature in your video have a schedule that they have to follow, and the locations may have restrictions with regards to schedules as well. A student cafeteria, for instance, will be very busy during certain times of the day, but virtually empty during other times. You need to make sure that there are no conflicts in scheduling. Imagine the time wasted, for example, when you find out that the library is running a silent study group at the time when you want to shoot a video about the building, or that the college dean is away on a training course when you want to interview her.

Creating a schedule is also about deciding what to do and when. It is advisable to do the complex shots and scenes as early as possible. That way, if something goes wrong, you will still have plenty of time to make adjustments. Be realistic about your scheduling as well. Remember that setting up all the equipment and dismantling them at the end of the scene, takes a lot of time. If you plan to shoot scenes at different locations, if possible shoot all of the scenes needed for a particular location before moving to the next location, rather than having to go backwards and forwards several times. It is easier to rearrange the various scenes into the order that you want, than to shoot them in that order.

Every video project, whether large or small, requires a good plan. Map out a schedule and make sure that everybody who will be featured in it, is aware of what is expected and when. When you have well-planned schedule, you will be able to minimize the occurrence of conflicts.

Conclusion

The next time you intend to embark on a college video project, consider the two steps above before you start. Following those steps means everybody knows what to do, and are likely to have a positive experience about it. Choosing your style and setting a schedule will not take too long, and they will save you a huge amount of time in the long run.

Dr. Mark Christensen from New Hampshire has worked in education in various roles throughout his career from classroom teacher to school administrator to marketing communications. He holds his Ed.D. in Curriculum & Technology from Plymouth State University/Argosy

Source: Mark Christensen

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